A Few More Seconds
by Quillian
Summary: After the events at the Collector base, Doctor Chakwas thinks to herself.


**DISCLAIMER:** I dont own _Mass Effect_, which belongs to Bioware and others.  
**SUMMARY:** After the events at the Collector base, Doctor Chakwas thinks to herself.  
**SPOILERS:** Seeing as this takes place after the events of _Mass Effect 2_, obviously it would help to know about that first.  
**RATING:** Seeing as this is about a horrifying prospect which the Reapers and Collectors had in store for Doctor Chakwas and any other humans which they abducted, and its based on an M-rated game well, its not that bad, so... "T", maybe?  
AUTHORS NOTES: Okay, this is my first-ever _Mass Effect_ fanfic, and while I've never actually played the game itself, I've seen walkthroughs of it online and I have read up about it. I just wanted to expand into _Mass Effect_ territory with my writing, so here it goes...

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**_"A Few More Seconds"_**

_By Quillian_

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_Dedicated with much thanks to my friend **starludev** for beta-reading this._

_I would like to thank the YouTube user **Vicks007kid** for his walkthroughs on YouTube which I have watched online so that I could familiarize myself with the _Mass Effect_ universe._

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_"A few more seconds and... I dont even want to think about it."_

In her own private quarters, Dr. Chakwas lay on her bed and thought to herself, and those same words of hers kept replaying in her head.

Like the rest of the crew (save Joker, and even EDI if she could be counted as such), she had been abducted by the Collectors while Shepard and the rest of his team were off doing something else. However, she was truly one of the very lucky ones to have been rescued before.

Try as she might, she couldnt suppress a shudder which ran through her body.

Try as she might, she couldnt stop thinking about how the Reapers had their Collectors abduct humans only to process them into gray liquid because of their genetic material...

...which, after the mission and escape from the Collector base, she then learned was intended to be used to create a human-form Reaper.

If the mere thought of being processed and disintegrated into genetic goop was terrifying thought, then the end purpose of that process was enough to make her go beyond mere shuddering, and actually shaking hard enough to make the bed itself rattle.

She may have been the ships doctor, qualified to heal any of the crews members, both their bodies and their minds, but at the moment, she was in desperate need of some healing herself... particularly the mental kind.

She may have doubled as the ships psychiatrist, but even she needed to see another psychiatrist every now and then... and this was definitely one of those instances.

She might have been the ships doctor, but who would there be to heal _her_?

She sighed, long and hard. She had already contacted Cerberus and had put in a request to take some time off, as well as a search for a well-qualified psychiatrist to handle her as best as it was possible, under the given circumstances.

She wondered how Commander Shepard himself handled such things, especially with everything which he himself had been through. For heavens sake, the man had even been spaced, technically killed, and then put back together over the course of two years! Who knew, maybe even she could learn a thing or two from someone like him.

At least the rest of the crew was being thoughtful and considerate of her and her situation; even Joker had been quite cordial and sympathetic to her plight (and that was a good thing, too, because if he even made so much as a joke about "not letting the bed bugs bite," then she would have had to deck him, consequences be damned).

But for now, she, Doctor Chakwas of the Normandy SR-2, definitely needed some sleep, perhaps other forms of rest and relaxation as well.

She didn't even bother changing into any kind of sleepwear; she just let her head hit the pillow and let her eyelids close shut.

She knew that she might have to contend with nightmares in the future, if not this particular night then maybe another night instead, but just like the rest of the crew, she would simply have to take things as they came.

Before long, Doctor Chakwas fell asleep, hoping to cross into the realm of dreams without giving way to nightmares induced by recent events.

One could only hope.

Even with whatever the future might hold, with the Reapers or whatever, Doctor Chakwas still remained confident in one thing: Tomorrow was a new day.

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A/N: So, what do you think?

Yes, I wanted to write something for _Mass Effect_, and so here it is. Will I write more in the future? We'll see...

**__****_–Quillian_**  
**(First posted: October 25, 2010)**


End file.
